Night three of Best of the Super Juniors will see five more tournament matches from A Block. Watch all the action on NJPW World, but before then, take a look at this breakdown of the top five bouts.
Dragon Lee (0-1) vs SHO (0-1)
Dragon Lee did not get off to the start in Best of the Super Juniors this year that he wanted. While traditionally there is little indication that a first match loss translates to an inability to win the tournament, being defeated in fairly convincing fashion by Taiji Ishimori on night one hurt Lee’s pride significantly.
SHO suffered similarly hurt pride when he lost to Shingo Takagi in the opening night, but had no reason to feel ashamed. While Takagi barely acknowledged how hard he was pushed by the High Voltage RPG3K member, SHO took Shingo to the very brink of defeat. The key on the night to almost beating Takagi was the BJJ influenced training he has been undergoing of late, and that could be the answer for SHO again opposite the IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Lee struggled with Ishimori’s Yes Lock at Dontaku and during the BOSJ opening night, and a submission based approach could be the answer to right the negative record for SHO here.
In their sole previous singles confrontation, Dragon Lee picked up the win in Korakuen Hall during BOSJ 25. One year on, can Dragon Lee repeat that feat, and put the champion back near the front of the pack?
Marty Scurll (1-0) vs Taiji Ishimori (1-0)
For two cocky competitors, an extra confidence boost was earned during night one, as Scurll snatched a win from Jonathan Gresham, and Ishimori pinned IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Dragon Lee. There is more to this match than mere ego however.
Last year, Ishimori made his re-debut in NJPW as the Bone Soldier in a distinctly fractured Bullet Club. That Club at the time also contained Marty Scurll, at least for the time being, before ruptures grew within the faction that eventually left Scurll standing alone before forming Villain Enterprises.
In separate blocks during BOSJ last year, the only time Scurll and Ishimori have met in a NJPW ring in fact was when Ishimori, along with Tanga Loa and Tama Tonga, seized the NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championships from Scurll and the Young Bucks during the final of last year’s G1 Climax: a match that saw Scurll take the pinfall loss. It would give no greater pleasure to Ishimori to deny Scurll access to the finals of Best of the Super Junior as well.
Titan (1-0) vs Shingo Takagi (1-0)
Both Titan and Shingo will be going into night three of Best of the Super Juniors hurting from Monday night’s group matches. Titan narrowly escaped his match with Yoshinobu Kanemaru on night one with a victory thanks to the Immortal pin that went wildly against the run of the match. Shingo meanwhile emerged bruised from a war with SHO that could well end up being the match of the tournament. While both have two points on the board, the stakes for both are very different, Titan being a relative underdog in the tournament, and Takagi many people’s favourite.
That said, Takagi has made no bones about the fact he feels this may be a difficult match for him. With no in person experience of wrestling in Mexico, Takagi has said he finds wrestling luchadores ‘challenging’, and that he will have his work cut out to dictate the pace in this match. The decided clash in styles should make this an interesting one to watch.
Tiger Mask (1-0) vs Yoshinobu Kanemaru (0-1)
Tiger Mask is entering BOSJ with a knee injury, one which was exploited and exacerbated by TAKA Michinoku on night one. That puts him against a decided disadvantage against TAKA’s Suzuki Gun stablemate Kanemaru, who will no doubt exploit Tiger’s hurt knee to the fullest. Kanemaru also dominated another masked man in Titan during the opening bout and will definitely seek to try and remove Tiger’s hood.
An exact copy and paste of Michinoku’s tactics by Kanemaru would forget one thing though: that Michinoku lost to Tiger Mask on night one. Tiger Mask’s resiliency was evident on the opening night as he secured victory with a Tiger Suplex. This will be the third singles meeting between Tiger Mask and Kanemaru, the third straight year that both men have been in the same block of BOSJ. They stand at one win apiece; could thsi be the rubber match between the two?
AKA Michinoku (0-1) vs Jonathan Gresham (0-1)
While Michinoku and Gresham will both be going into this match with an air of bitterness after two narrow losses in night one, this has to be one of the most intriguing clashes of the tournament. Michinoku and Gresham are two of the greatest technical masters of the game, and in many ways this feels like a generational clash, Gresham being the modern blend of technical and aerial wrestling that Michinoku was years before.
Their one in-ring meeting was in February at Honor Rising, a bout that saw Gresham pick up a tag team victory over Michinoku and Zack Sabre Junior with an Octopus hold submission on TAKA. Repeating that win would certainly ease the frustration of being pinned by Marty Scurll on night one.
